Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

TOPPS is a company founded in Brooklyn, NY in 1938. It is associated with baseball trade cards (and also other sport cards). However, it started in the gum industry not much later, in 1947, with the brand “BAZOOKA” to compete with Fleer’s “Dubble bubble”. Bazooka became a common name for bubble gum and I still use it sometimes to refer to the cut&wrap format. They also commercialized bubble gum baseball cards. These are a flat sheet of pink gum printed with some figures on it.

Coming back to the Bazooka, now this Division of Topps is called Bazooka Candy Brands and is specialist in “funny” candies/toys/seasonal products. I find all of them really interesting because move away from the traditional presentations and show a high level of innovation and “out-of-the-box” thinking. Some weeks ago, they launched the “Juicy Drop Gum”. This is a piece of cut&wrap (“Bazooka”!) which comes with a small bottle of sour gel. The idea is that the consumer (this is targeted to kids) pours some of this gel on the groove that the gum piece has on the top surface. Then it is chewed all together. Of course, this creates an explosive impact so it is intended for those looking for strong experiences (!).

Here is a classic: Choward’s Gum has been in the market for a long time in the US, but is a bramd that does not appear in the statistics, overshadowed by the giants Wrigley, Mondelez, Hershey and Perfetti.

Interestingly, it is a gum with sugar, which is not common at all. Still some classics with sugar stay in the market (i am thinking “Doublemint”, “Big Red”, …), but as you know, it is a segment that has been showing a steady decrease for many years.

I invite you to visit the web of the company: www.chowardcompany.com and I leave you with a photo of the product:

Now it seems that they decided to target the US market. Of course, with such an interesting functional gum for sure there is an opportunity. I attach the article fom Confectiomery News (link) so you can read the full information. It seems that the current formulation has changed slightly from the one I mentioned one year ago (e.g. In the “Energy on Demand” version the guaraná has disappeared and there is vitamin B5 instead). What has not changed is that the article still mentions the same two products that I described: “energy on Demand” and ” Sleep on demand”. The third product of the range “Focus on demand” is not mentioned.

What I find interesting in the article is the specific mention to the e-commerce and the intention of the company to fully develop this sales channel.

Also, it mentions the trend of “sugarfree” and “aspartamefree”, which is useful to keep in mind.

Today I saw these news about one of my favourites gum in the market: “Ice cubes” and I wanted to share it with you.

Hershey is going to launch a special edition of “glittering gum”. I am looking forward to seeing this product. The article from Confectionery News (see link) gives also figures about the growth of this particular brand, which is doing far much better than any of their counterparts.

I think it is a pity that Hershey does not promote more this gum segment, as their focus is in chocolate. Some days ago I was in their shop in Times Square/NY and none of the staff there seemed to be aware of this excelent product of their own company. Finally, I could find the “Ice Cubes” in a small, hidden corner of the shop.

The company withdraw that gum in 2013 because there were doubts about thte effects that it could have on children.

You can read the story in the linked article.

Even the FDA has not regulated the use of such product regarding children (the legal situationj is the same today than in 2013) the compnay says that has conducted their own studies and decided to re-launch it. The article also contains interesting figures about the gum market in the USA, where we can see the the decline in sales is still there and that Wrigley continues losing market share. I guess this might be one of the reasons for this re-introduction of the “Alert Gum”, now called “Alert Caffeine Gum” ( and before “Alert Energy Gum”).

As I mentioned several times before, going into the fuctional gum segment is one of the ways to try to boost sales.

More on this thread that has already a few posts. I read the news to day that the product will be launched in the US next year, 2018. This is a move that shows how serious the company is about this product. As far as I know it is available now only in the Italian market.

I have in my hands some samples of “Chew Pod”, in the two verison that exist: “Energy on demand” and “Sleep on demand”.

Both are a very good example of tabletted gum (made from gum in pwoder by means of a tabletting machine). The gum pieces have 3 horizontal layers, I assume that they serve technological purposes (like minimizing the stickiness to the tabletting machine) rather than aesthetical ones. The crumbliness (quite common in these type of products) is minimized, or i would say, even non-existing. The flavor has a very good lasting. They come in blisterpacks wth 8 pieces each.

The one that claims “Energy” contains Caffeine, Taurine and Guaraná seed extract (50mg, 50mg and 40mg respectively). The ones that claims “Sleep” contains Griffonia simplicifolia seed (5-HTP: 5-hydroxytryptophan) at 50mg per piece and 1,5 mg of Melatonin. Both versions contain vitamin B6 (pyridoxine HCl) and are sweetened with Sucralose.

The company that produces them is headquartered in California, USA and the product is manufactured in Canada.

You can learn more in a very attractive website: www.chewpod.com and also in www.khloros.ca (where I can see a thrid version of the product, named “Focus” but this does not seem to be in the market yet). You can also check the facebook page @chewpod and the instagram with the same label @chewpod , where this “Focus” version also appears.